


Fridge Magnets

by triggeringthehealing (froggydarren)



Series: FullmoonFiclet Entries [107]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Derek, Derek Hale is Bad at Feelings, Getting Together, M/M, Mates, Or werewolf bait really, Spark Stiles Stilinski, Stiles Stilinski is Alpha Bait, Werewolf Conferences & Conventions, mention of Alpha Scott, withholding information
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-21
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-06-14 04:10:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15380343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/froggydarren/pseuds/triggeringthehealing
Summary: It takes Stiles longer to notice what's going on than Derek expected. He always knew that one day the whole thing would come out, that Stiles would figure it out, but he thought he'd have more time. Then Stiles puts the pieces of the puzzle together.





	Fridge Magnets

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Full Moon Ficlet](http://fullmoonficlet.tumblr.com/) challenge on tumblr - prompt #285: magnetism

Derek watches Stiles from across the room and wonders what it was that caused the change. Or really, what it was that brought out that magnetism that he felt for years but that now seems to work on everyone else too. 

Now, Stiles draws in people in a way that has never been typical back in Beacon Hills. Now, he's never alone for more than a few minutes, always the one others find interesting and intriguing, whether they know of his Spark or not. Now, he's turning down offers for dates and for positions in packs across the country. 

It's something that Derek doesn't know what to do with. 

Because he's always been drawn to Stiles -- for help, for companionship, for everything -- and to see others be like that is making him happy for Stiles and concerned and uneasy at the same time. Most of the time he ignores the little voice inside his head that whispers "mine" at regular intervals whenever he sees Stiles surrounded by suitors of all the different types. But sometimes... 

Sometimes there are a few too many offers, too many business cards, too many wolves standing too close. 

"Can you believe it?" Stiles asks when he wanders over to where Derek's pretending to be nonchalantly sipping on his wolfsbane-laced beer. 

"If it's anything to do with you, then yes," Derek says and grins at Stiles's outraged expression. 

"Rude." Stiles huffs as he pulls himself up on the bar stool next to Derek. "Anyway. It seems that I've broken my record for how many packs suddenly decided that they  _need_  me. I mean, some of these didn't even know I'm a Spark and half of these--" he puts out several bunches of business cards on the bar top and points to one of them, "--already  _have_  established Emissaries." 

Derek only just holds back the growl that rises in his chest. It would not help anything, especially since he's sure that at least a few of the people whose cards are in front of Stiles are actively listening in, no matter how much of a breach of unspoken laws of decency between shapeshifters it is. 

"But this one." Stiles points to a card that's on its own. "I don't have the slightest idea what to do with that." 

One glance over tells Derek enough. It's the card branded with the McArdle pack insignia and he only needs a second to see Sean's -- the pack's Alpha's -- name on it. And that was a conversation that Derek couldn't help but overhear since it happened only a few steps away from him. He knows what Sean wants and he's surprised that Stiles doesn't already have a million things he'd want to research about it. 

He doesn't say anything though, afraid of what might spill if he was to start talking. 

"I mean, okay, I've seen the whole mate potential thing in action," Stiles continues talking, much to Derek's dismay. "I know that there's a predisposition for a good partner. But that's a thing between wolves, right?" 

Derek doesn't get a chance to nod before Stiles barrels on.

"There's no way that whatever magnetism it is that pulls anyone to an Alpha, or to a werewolf in general, would work with a regular human," Stiles says, poking at the business cards on the bar. 

"You're not a regular human," Derek mutters, then curses before Stiles turns to look at him.

"I'm a spark, yeah," he says. "But that's still human. Admittedly, slightly enhanced human, in strange ways I'm still only beginning to comprehend...." 

He pauses and when Derek looks at him properly, he's met with an expression that he's not a big fan of. It's Stiles's "there's a thing I should be getting, but I'm not quite sure yet so I'm gonna figure it out" face. The one that he usually has when Deaton says something that is supposed to sound irrelevant but has a meaning that almost always leads them to something important. It's the one that he has when someone deliberately withholds information. 

Not that Derek's withholding anything. Nothing that Stiles needs to know. 

"Wait, you knew," Stiles says after a few beats of silence during which Derek turned his focus back to his beer. 

Derek doesn't move. 

"How did you know?" Stiles asks, then continues talking without waiting for Derek's reply. "You couldn't have known from any of the talks or hints that Deaton gave us when we were making the pack thing work. You couldn't have read it in one of the books because I've read them too and there's  _nothing_  in there. You would've told me if it was something that someone told you, because it  _concerns_  me and you wouldn't withhold important information from me...."

He pauses, his voice a little shaky during the last few words. Like when the pieces of a puzzle start coming together. Derek doesn't need to look at Stiles to know that he's basically thinking out loud. 

"Unless," Stiles says, a hint of anger in his tone mixed with a little bit of wonder. "Unless you knew because you  _felt it_." 

_Crap._

Derek doesn't know why he's surprised that it barely took Stiles any time figuring it out. 

"Derek?" 

There's something in Stiles's voice that makes Derek look up from his beer and meet the brown eyes that are looking at him in a way he hasn't seen before. 

"Did you?" Stiles asks quietly. 

There's no way Derek would ever be able to lie to Stiles. He wouldn't  _want to_. Holding back things is one thing, but a straight up lie is never even remotely an option, not anymore. Not ever. So he nods. 

"Right." There's a moment when Stiles's face goes through several expressions in a succession so quick that Derek can't decipher them. "Okay," Stiles says, then he turns and gathers up the cards from the table, tucks them into his jeans and looks back at Derek. "My room, now. You're explaining yourself." 

It shouldn't be that easy. Derek should be able to shake his head, tell Stiles that now is not a good time, that it's not what they should be doing in the middle of a mixer at a gathering of packs. He  _could_  if he wanted to. 

Instead, he drops a few notes on the bar to cover his expenses from the evening and with a sigh, he nods towards the exit when Stiles doesn't move. 

"Not a regular human. Like it's not a big deal. He just... gah," Derek hears Stiles muttering, too low for most people in the room.

But Derek is attuned to his voice that little bit more, so he doesn't miss a word. Of course, that means that he also hears it when Stiles -- once they're out of earshot of the wolves in the hotel bar -- starts mumbling all the very creative and inventive wolf-related insults, all of them aimed at Derek. 

By the time they get to Stiles's room -- right next door to Derek's -- Stiles seems to have run out of steam. Or out of insults and names that he could call Derek. He walks in without sparing Derek a glance like he's expecting him to follow. Which Derek does, of course, because there is no point in trying to avoid the conversation that's sure to happen. 

"So, care to explain yourself, sourwolf?" Stiles asks, standing in the middle of the room, arms crossed, a challenging eyebrow aimed at Derek. 

"What do you want to know?" Derek asks.

It's not that he's trying to deflect, it really isn't. It's that he has no idea where to begin. There are so many things to unwrap, so many consequences, so many things he's kept close to his chest for so long. 

"How about you start with how the hell you never mentioned that I might end up swarmed by werewolves who are somehow drawn to me like I'm a fridge and they are kitschy souvenir magnets?" 

For a split second, Derek gets comfort from the mental image that Stiles drew. Or at least in the part where he imagines some of the less pleasant werewolves who were vying for Stiles's attention as cheesy, plastic, easily broken little wolf shapes with magnets on their backs. it doesn't last though, because Stiles is still there, impatiently tapping a foot, waiting for an answer. 

"It never came up," Derek says weakly. "I didn't know how to bring up something like that without..." 

He pauses because he's already said more than he wanted to and he's sure that Stiles can fill in the rest of that sentence. 

"Without mentioning that you  _knew_  how they feel? Why they are like that around me?" 

Derek nods. 

"Did you not think that was maybe something I should have been informed about?" 

The answer is yes, of course. But Derek's been hesitant to open that can of worms. 

"That maybe it would help me wade through the waters of all these events? And that me not knowing would possibly make it dangerous if I turned down someone who thought I shouldn't?" 

 "I'm sorry," Derek says, barely above a whisper, just loud enough for Stiles to hear. "I should have told you."

Stiles sighs and his hands drop down to his sides. If Derek didn't know better, he'd read it as a body language sign of opening up, of not being angry anymore. 

"You're an idiot, is what you are," Stiles says. 

The words should sting, they should carry animosity. But they' don't. They're fond, maybe a little exasperated, like Stiles doesn't know what to do with Derek. 

But then he walks closer, backs Derek against the now closed door, and he puts his hands on Derek's tense shoulders. 

"If you had told me...." 

Derek waits, unsure what he's supposed to do or say yet again. 

"I would've wanted to know," Stiles says. "I mean, not that I wanted you to be like  _them_." 

The last word comes out with the anger that Derek was expecting to be aimed at him. 

"Not fridge magnet material?" The question is out before he can think about it and Stiles's mouth twitches at the corner.

"Now is not the time to try and be funny," he says, but his voice gives away his amusement. "You don't get to do another thing that I tried to ignore for years." 

Now it's Derek who lifts an eyebrow in question, knowing what he wants it to mean, but unsure if that's what it is. 

"You want to know why I turned down all those offers?" Stiles asks, his eyes flicking down to his waist, to the pocket with the collection of business cards. "Why I never even considered  _trying_?" 

"Why?" 

"Well, first of all," Stiles takes his hands off of Derek and steps back. "I was not going to be the Emissary of any other pack than yours or Scott's. Or both of yours, I'm still trying to work out how that would be possible." 

Derek frowns because  _that_  is not something he was aware of. He worked with Scott, two packs on the same land, two Alphas protecting the same territory. He always figured that if Stiles was to become a fully trained Emissary, it would be to Scott. 

"Second of all," Stiles continues. "There's something extremely off-putting about werewolves who seem to think they have a claim on someone because of some sort of weird magnetism that's not even remotely binding by any law of nature. No matter how your mere existence breaks so many of those laws I've stopped counting years ago." 

He rolls his eyes and Derek tries -- and fails -- to hide a smile.

"But most importantly, I thought that there was no way that any of it was true or possible." Stiles tucks his thumbs into his pockets. "Because if it was, if there was even a slight chance that the mate connection or whatever it is was something that also worked for humans, I wouldn't have wanted it to be any of the ones who tried to pull me in." 

Derek still doesn't speak. His heart is racing in his chest, his mind bringing up what he wishes Stiles would say. 

"Is there a way for a human to feel that?" Stiles asks then. 

Derek shakes his head.

"It's only us," he says. "It's a draw that a regular brain can't process because while it's  _there_ , it's only the different sense processing that allows shapeshifters and other supernatural beings to comprehend it." 

"Well, that sucks," Stiles states. 

"Does it?" 

The question comes out because Derek never really _wanted_ to feel drawn to anyone. Not after his past experiences, not after everything that he's been through. He was fine dating, fine having casual hookups with people. But he never wanted that hint that someone might be  _good_  for him because his past has taught him not to trust that feeling. 

He especially tried hard to ignore his draw to Stiles. For more reasons than he cared to consider. 

"I wouldn't have minded knowing about that possibility." 

"Oh?" 

"And before you think about it too much," Stiles says as he steps closer again. "You. I would have wanted to know that the potential for something good was there with you." 

Derek's mouth opens and then closes. Not for the first time, he's speechless. 

"I mean, I already knew that, but this would have told me for sure," Stiles keeps talking. "And maybe then I would suggest that we listen to that. That we try. But you never seemed like you'd even consider  _me_  that way." 

"I did," Derek says, thoughts crashing around him as his fears melt away and his hopes soar. "I didn't want you to--"

Stiles's finger lands on his lips and cuts off the words. Stiles moves even closer, tucks the fingers on his free hand into the belt loop on Derek's jeans, and then he moves his finger away, his palm cupping Derek's cheek. 

"Yeah?" 

Derek nods, because there's very little that he would say no to right now. 

When Stiles kisses him, Derek knows that it was the right answer. 

**Author's Note:**

> [my tumblr](http://froggydarren.tumblr.com/) || [my sterek fic tumblr](http://triggeringthehealing.tumblr.com/)


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